Includes index

We are seven -- Farve and Muv -- Sisters and Tom -- Swinbrook House -- Rutland Gate and Old Mill Cottage -- Back to Swinbrook -- Debutante -- War -- Marriage -- Childbirths and deaths -- Inheritance -- Edensor House -- Lismore -- Moving to Chatsworth -- Bolton Hall -- A minister's wife -- The Kennedys -- Public life -- Orphan -- Midway -- Living above the shop -- Distractions -- Festivities and celebrations -- The others -- The old vicarage -- Appendix I : President Kennedy's Inauguration, 1961 -- Appendix II : President Kennedy's Funeral, 1963

Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire. Her life would change utterly with his unexpected inheritance of the title and vast estates after the wartime death of his brother, who had married Kick Kennedy, the beloved sister of John F. Kennedy. Her friendship with that family would last through triumph and tragedy. This is a unique portrait of an age, and an unprecedented look at life inside one of the great aristocratic families of England.--From publisher description

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